Maybe next time I should just buy vegan white chocolate and melt it and use that. Oh well. Ya live and ya learn, ya know?

These are really great if you’re one of those people who loves coconut. I happen to be one of those people. Coconut me anything.

I also really love lemon. Giada is totally right on the whole lemon thing: that shit adds shine to any dish. I love lemon in sweet, savory, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. Mmm mm mmm. Lemon me.

One pro tip I’d give for these macaroons: make sure you pulse the coconut in a food processor or blender or Vitamix or whatever fancy shit you got before you make the macaroons. It helps them bind and greatly enhances the texture/overall final mouth feel.

But if you love lemon and/or coconut, MAKE THESE. And dip ’em in white chocolate if you want. They’re great as a mid-morning snack, enjoy with yogurt or ice cream (I crushed one in my yogurt and it was like 10/10 material), or eat as dessert.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but truly the MVP here; if you don’t have any, sub an additional teaspoon vanilla)

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

6 ounces dairy-free or regular white chocolate

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place shredded coconut in a food processor or blender and pulse until a rough crumb forms (it should still have some shredded texture, but aim for tiny shred pieces).

Transfer shredded coconut to a bowl.

Wash and zest lemon.

Microwave coconut oil until melted (about 1 minute). Pour into bowl with shredded coconut. Add maple syrup, vanilla extract, and almond extract, lemon zest and juice, and stir until well combined and sticky. If the dough does not seem sticky enough, add an additional tablespoon or two of maple syrup.

Shape dough into small balls. I did this using a mini melon baller. Place balls of coconut dough onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet, roughly 1 inch apart.

Place oven for 10-12 minutes, until top is just lightly browned.

Remove pan from oven and place in the refrigerator to cool.

If using white chocolate, microwave chocolate chips in 30 second increments until melted, stirring at each increment. This will take about 90-120 seconds.

Remove macaroons from the refrigerator or freezer, dip bottoms in white chocolate, and return to parchment paper.

Place bars into the refrigerator until the chocolate top sets, at least one hour.

Now. I have seen a million line-extensions of Girl Scout cookie products on the shelves that hypothetically I could enjoy. Girl Scout cookie cereals, granola bars, candy bars, even teas – but nothing is quite as satisfying as the cookies themselves.

So when life won’t give me a vegan Caramel DeLite, I will make one myself. Because I am a strong, independent woman and I do not need a mass-bakery to support my inner-cookie-lover. I will get creative and I will succeed. Just watch me.

So here we are: vegan samoas. I played around with two versions. One batch I made used date caramel. The other used this Coconut Milk Caramel. You could also just melt a bunch of these heavenly nuggets and use that instead. You do you. I’m not here to tell you how to live your best samoa life.

Anyways ~ On to the cookies. A little prep work is involved, yes, but I promise it’s worth it. Perfect and impressive and tasty for your next party or Instagram. Or in my case, empty Friday night.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large bowl combine softened vegan butter and melted coconut oil. Add sugar and vanilla extract and whisk well. Add flour and fold into dough until just combined. If dough seems dry, add a tablespoon or 2 of water or non-dairy milk. Place dough in refrigerator to set, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, soak dates in 1 cup water for at least 10 minutes. Once dates have softened, drain them and place in a food processor. Add sunflower seed butter, vanilla and salt. Pulse until a smooth caramel dough forms; the caramel should be sticky.

Transfer date caramel to a bowl. Add shredded coconut and mix until coconut is coated in date caramel.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Roll out dough to be about 1/8th inch thick. Use a circle cookie cutter, and/or an inverted drinking glass to cut dough into circles. Use a knife to cut a smaller hole in the middle of each cookie, to resemble a doughnut shape.

Place cookies onto a parchment paper-lined pan and place in the oven until golden brown, about 18-23 minutes.

Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool.

Once cookies have cooled, use a spoon or your fingers (fingers are much easier, honestly) to distribute date caramel around cookies. Aim for about 1/4-1/3th inch of date caramel.

Once cookies have caramel layer, melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave using 30 second increments, and stirring occasionally. This will take 2-4 minutes. Once chocolate is melted, stir in coconut oil.

Pipe chocolate or drizzle it in a zig-zag pattern using a pastry bag, and/or by letting it run off the back of a spoon. Once all cookies have a chocolate drizzle, dip the bottom of each cookie into the remaining chocolate, placing back onto the parchment baking sheet after each dip.

Allow cookies to set in the refrigerator until chocolate has hardened, at least 30 minutes.

Caramel! Do you say it “CARA-uh-mel” or “CAR-uh-muhl” or “KAR-mul?” I say it “delicious,” and something I enjoy swirled into my ice cream or as a dipping sauce for a hot doughy pastry (hello, mini churros).

So once upon a time I found and fell a bit infatuated with these vegan caramels made from coconut milk. Me being me, I instantly starting working on how I could recreate something similar.

I typically make my vegan caramel from dates, which is delicious, but this was a fun new challenge and I can’t wait to bake with this stuff and incorporate it into other fun desserts and treats.

What are you up to right now? As I’m typing up this post, I’m watching Vanderpump Rules. It’s the best worst show ever.

Life is still a bit of a doosey for me lately. I’m experiencing multiple transitions and am exploring new platforms for freelance, and in the meantime I find I have a lot of create energy and am unsure where to place it. It feels like I’m going to pop creative juice all over the carpet. So when this happens I end up baking breakfast cookies and making homemade vegan caramel. I need a life. Or a friend who will eat my food that isn’t my dog.

In other news, I am experiencing a really adorable adult acne breakout. This acne does not help me in the she-looks-like-a-teenager-don’t-take-her-seriously-department. Which is starting to get a wee bit frustrating. But that’s okay. I recently read a tweet from a vlogger I follow about letting people who doubt you and try to take advantage of you be your motivation to succeed. So I’m going to try to go this route. Which I guess means caramel, among other things.

Enough of my talking. On to the caramel:

It’s easy, delicious, and has a lovely coconul undertone. It’s wonderful swirled into yogurt, on top of ice cream, AND in the recipe I am going to post next (stay tuned ~ I’m really excited about this one).

Once upon a time I lived very near to exceptional vegan eatery called Peacefood Cafe.

From the famous chickpea fries to the best vegan burger I have ever put in my mouth, you really can’t go wrong at Peacefood (minus the raw sushi, I’d skip that).

Then, of course, there is the dessert case. HOLY COW that dessert case. It is beautiful and extensive and wonderful and delicious. The carrot cake is a frequent subject of my day dreams. The raw key lime pie is super tangy and refreshing. The raw cocoa mousse pie tastes like heaven took slice-form. And the deceptively simple coconut macaroons are other-wordly.

I’m proud to say I’ve eaten everything in their dessert case at one time or another (seasonal/daily specials aside). But I’m sad to admit I skipped over the chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons for a long time.

Until, one day, my friend Dan ordered one post-dinner, so I got one too. It was phenomenal. Moist, sweet, but not overly so, and dipped in dark, dark chocolate. HEAVEN.

It took me several attempts to recreate macaroons that tasted half as good as Peacefood’s. The key, I have decided, is almond extract, and enough melted coconut oil to keep the inside moist and luscious.

The macaroons are yummy, but a bit putsy to make, so I turned the recipe into a bar form so there is less messing around/time between me and ma macaroons.

If you want to create the regular babies, just use an ice cream scoop and shape into small mounds and place onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet before putting into the oven instead of pouring into a pan.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons almond extract (optional, but truly the MVP here; if you don’t have any, sub an additional teaspoon vanilla)

1 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

1/3 cup almonds, chopped

dash of sea salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a 12×12″ pan.

Place shredded coconut in a food processor or blender and pulse until a rough crumb forms (it should still have some shredded texture, but aim for tiny shred pieces).

Transfer shredded coconut to a bowl.

Microwave coconut oil until melted (about 1 minute). Pour into bowl with shredded coconut. Add maple syrup, vanilla extract, and almond extract, and stir until well combined and sticky. If the dough does not seem sticky enough, add an additional tablespoon or two of maple syrup.

Pour dough into greased pan and press into pan with a spatula. Flatten and pack dough as much as possible.

Place pan into oven for 10-12 minutes, until top is just lightly browned.

Remove pan from oven and place in the refrigerator to cool.

Meanwhile, microwave chocolate chips in 30 second increments until melted, stirring at each increment. This will take about 90-120 seconds.

Chop almonds.

Remove pan from the refrigerator or freezer and pour melted chocolate over the coconut bars. Spread chocolate with a spatula to evenly cover bars. Sprinkle chopped almonds over melted chocolate. Sprinkle with salt, if desired.

Place bars into the refrigerator until the chocolate top sets, at least one hour.

Holy buckets I have not blogged in quite a little bit! This may be the longest blog break I’ve taken in a year! Wowza. Where oh where have I been?

Welp, the month of July was insanely busy. In one short month I managed to go to New York, Chicago, Quebec City, attend two weddings, helped out with a fabulous bridal shower, attend Accepted Student’s Day at Columbia University in the City of New York (yup, that’s right, I’m heading back to NYC for grad school!) and spend a surprise night at a Ramawada Inn in Newark, NJ due to a clusterfuck of a travel situation heading back from Quebec.

When I wasn’t traveling, I was working working working! I’ve been trying to work at Trader Joe’s as much as I can while still establishing a balance for free time/sanity, which between travel and some other freelance projects I’ve had this month, has been quite the juggling act. But exciting things are coming and happening and it’s been a busy but fun month – despite the fact that it completely flew by!

So today, July 29th, I had off. Free of all obligations, duties, travel agendas, work, and any other sort of obligation that would require me to be wearing real pants at a certain time and place. Aka utter BLISS. Millie (bless her soul) of course decided woke me up at 5:34am on the dot. 5:34 am seems to be her favorite time to wake mommy up to go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, and promptly climb back into bed, leaving me up and awake for the day.

I’m naturally an early riser, but sometimes, sometimes, I fantasize of sleeping in til 6am on my days off. I guess I should just keep dreaming, right?

Getting up early isn’t always a bad thing – I’m most awake and productive in the early morning and it allows me to get things done before the rest of the world wakes up to distract me. The only downside is that often times I want to get errands done but things like the post office and Target aren’t open until several hours after I rise (-__-). Sometimes this leaves me time to do other things. Like bake.

This morning, I baked some banana bread. Can I tell you a secret? For YEARS I have had the hardest time perfecting banana bread. I just couldn’t do it! I don’t know why. It was always too dry, too wet, too clumpy, or the texture simply wasn’t correct.

I know, I know how can this be? I can make homemade Cronuts and elaborate cakes with my eyes closed, and I’m a well-known banana fiend, but for reasons beyond my explanation, I couldn’t make a decent banana bread to save my life. Well, recently, I am happy to say, I conquered the banana bread beast. Yes, I won. I won at life.

This recipe is several years and about 200 loaves of mediocre or failed banana bread in the making. But here, right in front of your eyes, is the best-ever, hearty, moist, pleasantly filling / not junky vegan and gluten-free banana bread. I think two major keys to perfect banana bread are almond flour and coconut oil. I really have tried this recipe with peanut butter and almond butter, but to me, texture and flavor wise, coconut oil (though boring) reigns supreme.

Winning at this recipe was a major hurdle for me to overcome in my life. I finally feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my culinary shoulders. In a sense, accomplishing this banana bread was a pleasant reminder that if I bust my butt hard enough, I can overcome any life obstacle. Which, when you’re moving halfway across the country again to throw yourself into grad school after some relaxing time off, is a pretty good reminder.

Onwards and upwards, friends! Happy banana bread to you. 😀 And in the words of Apu from the Simpsons, “Hallelujah, we have banana bread.”

5. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and top with remaining 1/4 cup walnuts, and bake for 60 – 80 minutes, or until bread becomes browned and until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean upon removal. Allow to cool and serve with coconut oil, jelly, or more nut butter :-D.

Homemade granola makes me so happy. It’s so easy and fast and sounds impressive, but is a super quick thing to throw together and munch on all week long.

I would categorize granola as something that definitely is worth making at home. There are certain things I think are definitely easier to buy. An example of this would be hummus and almond butter. I try my best, but I can never get the texture as good as the ones from Trader Joe’s. I’ll keep working on this. In the meantime, I’ll keep cranking out granolas by hand, whether they be of the Puppy Chow variety, Nutty Gingerbread Granola, or Carrot Cake Granola. Or, in this case, Cherry Almond Vanilla Granola:

But homemade granola is noticeably better than store-bought. First off, it just tastes so darn fresh and wonderful. It’s also easy to customize. I like that I can add a boatload of nuts because I like a boatload of nuts in my granola. I can also make it extra-cinnamony and not-too-sweet. And it’s wonderful and perfect and has a magnificent crunch and makes the house (or studio apartment) smell absolutely wonderful. It’s actually a staple of mine to snack on and keep around the house, which is why when the Recipe Redux challenge for May was to share a DIY household kitchen staple, I knew I had to share a recipe for granola. Easy to make, more than worth the effort, and always a delightful snack to have on hand. Yums.

Today I was running very low on maple syrup because my mom used like, all of mine without my knowledge. I try to remind myself that she paid for my food for 18 years of me growing which couldn’t have been cheap. But then I’m usually still sad because I am emotionally attached to all of my foods. Regardless, I ended up trying to use applesauce to replace some of the syrup. I actaully really liked the result. It gives it a nice texture and good clump-age (sounds sexy, right?) and acts as a wonderful binder without giving too much sweetness to the stuff. I’d do it again.

So in a way it ended up being a good thing that I was low on maple syrup. Except then I ended up at Trader Joe’s on an off day (again) which is getting embarrassing. Sometimes a girl just needs to get her homemade granola fix.

So here we go with this Cherry Almond Vanilla Granola. It’s a great combination of flavors. I really love almonds and cherries and they pair together quite well. Vanilla adds a warmth and sweetness to tie it all together.

Prep Time: 10 minutesBake Time: 30 minutesLevel: Easy

makes about 4 cups granola

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats

1 cups almonds (I used slivered, because it was what I had, but you can use whatever)

4. Pour wet mixture over dry mixture and mix until well combine. The oats should all be a little wet. Transfer to a parchment-lined or nonstick baking sheet. Place into the oven for 30-35 minutes until nuts and oats have browned. Add cherries and almonds about 15 minutes into baking and mix well (this is optional, if desired you can add them from the get-go, I just prefer my nuts and dried cherries a little less toasted, especially if the nuts are slivered, but you can easily add them before baking). When it is done, it will still be sticky. Take it out of the oven anyways. It will harden as it cools. Enjoy 🙂

For more DIY Kitchen Staples from fellow Recipe Redux members, click around below:

This title of this recipe should come as no surprise to those who know me. I love bananas. I love oatmeal. Boom: it’s a Banana Bread Oatmeal Bake for One. YUM.

What’s more surprising than the title of this recipe, and the fact that it was nearly 70 degrees today and I actually started sweating while outdoors (which hasn’t happened in approximately 6 months) is the fact that I’ve never put this recipe on my blog. This is strange because I eat it all.the.time.

It’s a longtime favorite. A best friend in the breakfast department. A midnight post-all-day-study-marathon-at-Bobst meal. A lunch-time go-to when I feel like breakfast for lunch. A second breakfast when my typical 5:30am breakfast doesn’t hold me over til noon. In essence, I eat this baby several times a week, yet I’ve never shared it. Today, that changes.

Bonus: it makes your kitchen smell amazing and takes less than 2 minutes to throw together. Then you let it bake up nice and quick in the oven, and the smell of sweet, sweet banana bread will waft all throughout your house, tickling your nostrils and getting your tummy oh-so-ready to eat it all up. It’s also vegan and gluten-free, making it highly allergen-friendly to you and your kin. I don’t know why I just referenced a Christmas song. Anyways…

I really hope anyone looking to mix up their breakfast or late-night-snack routine gives this baby a whirl. It’s never let me down, and I believe it won’t let you down either. You can add syrup, sugar, or honey to the top if you desire, but I find the sweetness of baked bananas to be plenty. I like it best fresh out of the oven, covered with a splash of almond milk to cool it down, and drizzled with ooey gooey almond butter that gets all melty when it hits the hot oatmeal bake. But that’s just me. You do you. And you eat dem oats, homie.

2. Cut banana in half. Mash half of the banana and add to the bowl. Add nut butter or coconut oil and non-dairy liquid. Mix well.

3. Transfer to an oven-safe ramekin or dish. Slice remaining half of banana on top of oatmeal mixture. Place in the oven for 18-25 minutes, until fluffy, browned, and liquid has all absorbed. Serve with almond or other non-diary milk, non-dairy yogurt, and syrup or honey as desired.

Carrot cake is one of my favorite desserts. While I tend to be a chocolate-lover, I will stray from the norm for carrot cake. It’s all about the textures, baby.

It is my goal to create the best carrot cake-themed desserts ever in the near future. I like applying the flavor profile to other sweet treats, including granola and these cookies. I’m just getting started and feel more inspired than ever to conquer the carrot cake world. Stay tuned. Just like I’m currently staying tuned to this new season of Real Housewives of NYC. Gosh I’m happy Bethenney is back.

Back to carrot cake creations: I decided I wanted a slightly healthier tasting way to get a mini carrot cake fix early in the morning without feeling too sugared up. I wanted something that felt substantial and hearty, instead of like eating fluff. So I made Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies to grab for quick mid-morning or afternoon snack attacks. They’re awesome. Much like my dog. Hey, did you know I have a dog? I do.

These babies are slightly sweet, but full of nuts, carrots, raisins and whole grain goodness (go oats!) so they satisfy what I love about the taste and texture of carrot cake but give me a lil energy boost for the day. They’re the perfect breakfast or snack cookie and pretty darn good for ya as far as cookies go.

Plus, they’re healthy enough to be a respectable breakfast option. And I like excuses to eat cookies for breakfast. Hope you do too; enjoy these cookies and have a happy day. 🙂